Ever Loved Me
by Houjuu
Summary: "Lorien love is purity in all forms. The raw emotion, one so powerful it defies the basic chemicals in the mind, that those born on the distant planet posses has always something humanity would long for until the end of time. To become entirely infatuated with your loved ones, your allies, and every aspect of your life until death tore you apart was a luxury that the people."


**AN: Not a Stohn one shot so it's not being grouped in with the rest of them; this is just my little interpretation on the 'Lorics love for life' myth from the first IAN4. This fic may focus on Stohn towards the end heavily but there are other pairings sprinkled through out! FFnet still doesn't have it's character tags updated and in a perfect world I'd have Five and Adive tagged instead of Marina but what can you do. Enjoy!**  
 **Find me on Tumblr at officialpittacuslore!**

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Lorien love is purity in all forms.

The raw emotion, one so powerful it defies the basic chemicals in the mind, that those born on the distant planet posses has always something humanity would long for until the end of time. To become entirely infatuated with your loved ones, your allies, and every aspect of your life until death tore you apart was a luxury that the people of earth severely lacked. Humans fight and kill over all of the things that don't matter compared to life; blood is shed for ideology, for turf, for the sake of proving who is best, with not a second glance at the damages their harm brings onto others. Humans have used war as a tool for centuries, it is their way and has been since the dawn of time. Loric scholars have been watching the distant planet rotate since the first civilization was mapped, trying to aid its growth anyway they could without completely buckling themselves. One answer was obvious and would be for as long as time allowed it; to give worthy humans Legacies and enlighten them of the magic of Lorien Love was the absolute last option. Earth has always envied Lorien for its powers, for the conscious connection that caused peace amongst its own people; the Loric don't have to kill each other to prove anything, they can just exist. The Loric don't have to measure up to a challenge with violence, they can always find another way to solve their differences. Perhaps that is why the Loric were given powers beyond their wildest dreams, because they would lack those urges to use them as weapons against one another.

Mogadore must have felt that agency, the freedom of the Loric's love, and became desperate to inherit it. Mogadore wanted to be weightless by the mortality they were unfairly bestowed. Thus, they could be taken over so foolishly by a man who no longer could love the way he was born to. Setrakus Ra, the Great Leader of the Mogadorian race and Lorien's biggest threat since their race first learned to fight in countless intergalactic wars. For he, Setrakus Ra, had their weaknesses down to a science, he knew exactly what would ruin the legendary Garde and resourceful Cepan; for he was once one of them. Setrakus Ra lost the ability to love like a Loric when he turned himself and an entire race of people far away into cruel experiments. He lost the drive and passion for his own life that he begun to lust after the blood of others alike him. But Ra was no fool, he couldn't quietly murder Mogs and maintain his power over them. His blood lust was particular. He needed to kill something worth his while; a monster after a while can become an indescribable beast with a far more dangerous mind than body after all. He could use that new weapon carefully, however, and turn them against one of their sole allies, the ones with everything to lose.

The Loric.

Setrakus Ra once loved like a Loric when he could still remember the part of him that was as pure as the planet itself; he loved with the same color of the forests and lakes of Lorien, with the same strength as the Elders and with the same radiance as the race itself. He once could do it all when he married and bared a family with a Cepan female from his youth, Celwe. But, he had lost her; she found a way to slip past the canopy made of his love after he transformed into his own personal nightmare. He lost her most when Setrakus realized he couldn't love her the same way as he loved another.

When he realized that the myth of him is true, for the Loric can only, truly, give all of their love to one for their entire life.

At an early age, before they could have realized the consequences for letting themselves falling too fast, Setrakus Ra had fallen in love with Pittacus Lore and went to war on himself when he could no longer bare it. When Setrakus couldn't give all of himself to Celwe, he gave what pieces were left to his work instead.

He gave the remaining shards of his being to the act of murdering the Loric people, blaming them for cursing him with a love in this way. Setrakus took his wrath and made it into genocide as he manipulated Mogadore and told them to attack their truest enemy.

The love of his life knew he was coming.

Pittacus Lore knew Setrakus would come back and reign his terror on their people. He knew the extent, and knew there was only so much he could now do for his people; he had failed to be their savior for as long as they needed him. In a feeble attempt, condemning his late actions forever and ignoring the entire Loric race in the process, Pittacus Lore allied with the elders to save their people in long term by putting all of their legacy and love into nine handpicked children. Distant descendants of each elder, the Garde children were meant to save the race and defeat the darkness in Setrakus' Ra's wake. With them and their Cepans to guide them, the nine Garde could unlock the last of Lorien's love, sealed far beneath the surface of the Earth, and win. The children were to protect those in order of each other, to lay their lives down for the Garde that followed.

Those numbers were randomized; a safety measure, for it worst came to worst and Mogadore could decode their charm. Then all the progress would be lost for nothing.

The children and their partners, with a mere few of Lorien's own chimera, were sent in the midst of the planet's final moments.

Lorien would finally share its love with Earth and with Mogadore.

For Pittacus Lore had also, unconditionally and would as he took he finally breath on Earth in the arms of Malcolm Goode, loved Setrakus Ra. He would share that love with others instead of himself.

To prove the ends of his love, unbeknownst to the pair who carefully handed over the granddaughter of the man responsible for their massacre to the Cepan Crayton in secret, Lore blessed the tenth child with a sparing of his love. With his powers and those powers he shared with Ra, Pittacus gave the strength he could have used to defeat Setrakus Ra to preserve his love's legacy and give it a second chance.

The last of it went into his lineage. The young boy with the blonde hair of the Lore ancestors and all telling, beautiful blue eyes won't remember him but he will be able to feel him in his blood for ages to come.

Pittacus only wished for he not to be Number One.

Setrakus Ra and Pittacus Lore would live again, side by side in special union, but it would be in due time. When the young but strong willed Ella would cross with noble, impassioned John Smith and realize their inheritance together would the two rivals be finally allowed to settle in a life far away from mortality.

The children, through their own experiences with the soft guidance from their Cepans and whispering of love from Lorien in their veins came together on their own terms; they powered the essence of Lorien deep inside the Earth's core to its max without knowing that it existed.

Number One was the first.

One learned about love long past her days alive and part of their world; when her memories were roughly extracted and pushed inside the mind of Adamus Sutekh, into a soldier whose code was never wired for cruelty that longed for a change in any form. She befriended him, showed him her light, and gave him all of her love. The love that had prevented her from disappearing from the world just yet. Adam opened up to her; he became who he was meant to be. He became her beacon of hope and was the first Mogadorian who learned to love like a Loric.

Adamus had a new job; he was to protect the rest of the Lorien's love left on Earth. He locates Number Two off of the Mogadorian's files and tries to spare her from her fate. Her Cepan was brutally executed and she was not to fall far behind. Adam wanted her to see him as what he became, not what his body made him out to be. He was her ally, he felt the connection between the pieces of One he became and the energy found only in those like the Garde.

When the light left Number Two's eyes as Adam's brother stabbed her through the throat with hatred and disgust, Adam felt her Loric energy as well as One's now move within him. He did not inherit Two's powers but he found he was still kindred with her.

There had to be a connection between all of them, a bond through the feeling only those of Lorien understand, and Adamus Sutekh was the first to realize this.

He would not fail again, he would find and save Number Three.

Ivan tried to ensure he would not succeed. Ivan tried to break him, to dim the light that One and Two had lit inside of him, but he could barely scratch the surface of something he couldn't understand. Adam's father, the highest general of the Mogadorian Empire who did the bidding of their Great Leader by the guidance of the Great Book, killed the young boy without consideration.

When One's spirit finally drifted from him and joined the scores of fallen in the neverending matter around them, Adamus knew he was given a new purpose.

Adamus Sutekh got up; he would not be beaten by this madness. He walked off on his own power, inspired by love. He managed to meet and befriend Malcolm Goode, a human blessed enough by the Loric to keep their secrets safe at the cost of his own life, based on love. Malcolm loved his planet and his son like a Loric would that he abandoned his family completely to defend them from the things they could never know.

Where as Adam stood up and faced his destiny, Number Five had let himself remain knocked down for far too long.

He was taught nothing of a Loric's love, nothing of his purpose on this mundane, green planet riddled with hate. He knew his Cepan died simply, he knew the name of the girl he was fond of and that she made him feel. He knew that Mogadore was interesting, not evil, and the world elders had rather send nine children to a distant planet then use their ultimate Legacies to save their race.

Five learned of Mogadore's hate, spoon fed deceptions spun from deeper lies that explained Lorien as the greatest evil and Mogadore as a planet that wished to rise from the ashes of misfortune. Lorien was cruel, selfish; they condemned people unlike them and refused to share any part of their secrets with Mogadore or Earth. Pittacus Lore wanted other species to suffer; Pittacus Lore wanted his own people to suffer, why else would he send nine defenseless children to a planet in the distant galaxies to be chased by his enemies?

Number Five watched his few friends and lovers break apart before him; if the power of his people love was so strong, how come it wouldn't save him from becoming a beast? Why was it that Adamus Sutekh, a Mogadorian, a son of a general who despised the Lorien rule most, was given a new purpose but he was destined to regress and deteriorate? How was Adamus part of the Elder's plans and he was not?

Because Lorien was evil in its heart and Five was determined to exorcise the shadows from his code.

The Garde, his people only by species, are the enemy; Lorien's ability to love was another way that the deceased group of slavers tried to seize absolute power over all others. The Great Book wouldn't lie; Ethan wouldn't lie.

Five didn't need more persuasion on that fact when his enemy, his rival in every capacity, Number Nine, merely looked like evil. His jet black long hair and cold, darken eyes showed Five the true face of Lorien. Broken, weakness, shackled to ideology of love and promises. Nine showed Five how corrupt their love could be; he abandoned his Cepan for a human girl, he betrayed the Elder's plan to remain in secret until he was called to action like the hero he was meant to be. He was Number Nine, after all, and if the way the numeric lined up, he was to be the strongest of the original children.

Another rumor, another fable full of holes.

Five could make him weak. Five could break him easily with words, make him react on impulse instead of brainpower like the strategist prided himself on. He was a warrior with a knack for war and Five was always paces ahead. He could kill Nine and with his death begin to deconstruct the foolish belief in Lorien from the others.

He did not, however, count on Number Four stepping in the way he did. Four did not allow Nine to stay broken. Five learned of the power of Four's love early on, when Nine resurfaced from his Cepan's workshop with a foreign smile and healed hand. His anger now long forgotten, all for Number Four.

It wasn't long until Five got the chance again to finish off the ultimate evil. Nine was wounded, pitiful against the base of a tree in the midst of a Florida swamp, in the successful trap. Six was out of commission while Seven stood in denial. But, when Five unseated his blade and charged forward, he was meet the soft tissue of Number Eight.

Number Eight threw away his life for one of his own.

His love for his fellow Garde, his family, was enough to die for. Chaste kisses and brushing fingers with a girl he grew to love unconditionally hasn't been enough to keep Eight from giving his life for Nine, the boy next in line even long after the charm's dissolve.

In that moment, blood spattered and crumpled into the dirt, Eight changed Five so simply. Eight made him believe that Lorien's love could, in fact, be real.

Seven lashed out at him and broke him inside. She took out his eye and left him a pathetic shell of the proud Mogadorian soldier he once was. What was Five if not a warrior? What was Seven if she was no longer compassionate for the world that sought to hurt her, if she became too ruthless and too cold like the ice she forged at her touch? She was too different now; she had too been changed by the depth of Eight's love for her and for all of them but to an extreme. But, was it by love or by Five's crimes? In his death, the eighth boy and fourth victim had proved how worthy he was of the title of an Elder; if he had survived, Eight would have been the change that this world would need after a Mogadorian war.

The Pittacus Lore they needed but did not deserve.

Five took the body of the former Garde. He studied the other boy's last moments in his memories over and over until every part of the exchange made sense. Five shuddered with every splash of red, every time he remembered the cold, gut wrenching pain as Seven took out his eye with an icicle.

But in the brilliant, capable Number Ten, he was finally shown another way back. She rejected every piece of her biological code and stayed loyal to the Garde. She fought Setrakus Ra in a way that none of the other children could ever try. She was his family and she rejected every part of him and his empire.

Five wanted to be like her. He wanted to be brave like Ten. He wanted to help her become more than the granddaughter of Ra, to save her from his fate.

If Number Five was the metaphorical reincarnation of Setrakus Ra in their line of elder successors and Number Ten had been blessed with all of the love of Pittacus Lore, then it is because of her he could be given a second chance.

In his own special way as he always worked, Number Four had also given him a second chance. He continued to surprise Five, to intrigue and inspire Five. Even with a human girl at the touch of his heart and a planet of people to care for, Number Four could and would always find a way to save Nine from himself. With his hands shaking and caked in blood of humans and Loric alike, Four brought Nine back with mist in his eyes and wounds deep down. The broken look of relief on Four's face when Nine awoke and grabbed hold his shirt would haunt Five forever.

Four, an embodiment like Ten and Eight of Lorien's essence, loved the feral Nine with no remorse.

Five wanted to learn of love like Four had.

Even in the face of grief, when faced with the monster that almost took Nine from him for good, Four chose to heal Five. He sought to look after Five like one of their family, like Five had an untouched purpose and Four wanted to see that to the end.

Four's love was bottomless and, like with Number Ten, Five had been blessed with it as well. Five fought besides Four and Ten, he opened himself to Seven's wrath, and he willed himself to survive so he could become better. But if he were to die, he would die on the side of the family he did not deserve.

He would die at the hands of Setrakus Ra, at the hands of every little toy Ra used to charge himself with hatred, and weaken him with the power of Lorien's love.

Five survives, but barely. As he promised himself while drowning in the ichor of Ra, he would become new anyway. He repeated those promises quietly as he crawled back to life and felt for the missing pieces of him that Setrakus dissolved into those acids, tells himself that he will change for the best to deserve them.

In the not so distant future, when Number Five covered in the physical scars of war and Adamus Sutekh emotionally confined by his family and the loss of his chimera in the arctic meet again, they learn a lot from each other's stories. They are not different from one another and benefit from the other's story. With one another, Adam and Five learn to no longer fear laughter and smiles.

Perhaps, in time, they could even become fond of each other.

The Loric were thought to love one for the span of their entire lives. Once a Loric met his or her match and fell inevitably in love, they could never feel the same way for another ever again. At least, so said the myth. A Loric's capacity to love was bottomless in all aspects except romance because it's the strongest and hardest to control; it is by love and emotive strength that a Garde draws their strongest legacies and to throw romantic love away on many would waste its potential.

Seven and Eight would have been an example of that, happily enthralled in one another forever. It was almost instantaneous; Seven defeated Eight in his water challenge and saved his chest from the bottom of a lagoon. She was kissed that day, passionately and filled to the brim with the colors of Number Eight.

Eight's love for her and for their people was full and consuming. He held her with such care and compassion, even when he didn't mean for every gesture to be romantic. Eight saved certain, careful smiles especially for her and lit her body ablaze when he took her hand or laughed at her jokes.

He was to be her everything, her one love for the rest of her life, for Seven let herself fall in love completely with. Until he was not and his life was cut short by Five.

Seven would avenge him. She was taken hold of by her anger and broken pieces, cooling her very body with every fragment. She learned to craft her cold into ice, both as a weapon and a state of being. She was frosted inside, cold to the touch. Five's life at her fingertips would be her warmth and she uses these thoughts to convince herself so. She would heal eventually.

Seven spares Five. She watches him crumble for a little while, then lets him disappear from her subconscious. She would heal as he would, she whispered to herself. She would have that hole inside of her in the shape of the endless mass of Eight's love but she would will herself to heal

She is invited to the cave that herself and the few others in her company met with Eight. Four shows her his work, what he accomplished in a year of solitude(though she learns Ten kept him company in the recent months). He shows his sign of healing, moving to live the life that his love would have wanted of him; living a secret life inside of his psych that no one else could know.

Seven kisses Four. It's brash and desperate, a mess in hope that she has moved on and was ready to take in the fire inside of him. She breathes and wills herself to love Four, but both of them do not allow it. They can't open up to each other the ways they already have with other lovers. Seven befriends Four in a way none of the other Garde could understand, through lost love and unrequited self promises. Seven learns secrets of Four not even Sarah Hart knew and she stops herself from trying to push for anything again. They couldn't be together, they were too different in their alike stories.

Seven is a Loric who will love only one, the kind martyr in a fruitless war, forever.

It was because of Eight's sacrifice and Seven's need to pass him into a life without war that humanity was, at last, allowed Legacies. Humans could finally learn to love the way love was meant to be.

Sam Goode, one of those humans newly equipped with Legacies given to him by the love of Lorien itself hidden deep inside of the Earth, hoped to have that luck with Six.

The human Garde like Sam are learning their new feelings through their powers. They know that they are the change this world needs and that is why they were gifted. Ran grieves inside of herself; she puts herself into her work at the academy on the West Coast and never looks back at the shatters of her old life. Caleb works hard as well, side by side with his fellow students and with the decayed government in hopes of bringing power back to a once great nation. Daniela changes her world in her own place; she starts with her family at Brooklyn, reunited happily with her mother, and shares her love with her people. She does not forget Four and Sam, she does not forget Nine's scattered body and Five's bloody mess; she presses onward using their stories and scars as inspiration of what not to let happen. She tells of their heroism but save not for how useless the boys would have been without her, Seven, Ten, or especially Six.

Daniela speaks of Sarah Hart like she'd known her for a lifetime, with tears dappled on her strong composure and inspiration warming her core.

Nigel is different. He visits the mouth of the discarded cavern in the North where they had been led to find Four, carefully laying bouquets on the vigil place of the fallen; he visits the resting place of his close friends Bertrand and Fleur often. He is softly hurting, changed by the lack of words he hadn't been able to share. It had been the three of them until they arrived and met Ran. It had been Bertrand and him in the beginning; he loved the other boy and lost him so easily that Nigel felt he couldn't possibly deserve these powers bestowed to him. All of the stolen glances, the brush of his fingertips against Bertrand's round cheek, the suppressed urges to push their mouths together and make a statement, were lost when Nigel took them into their unknowing deaths.

The power of Lorien's love brought them together and banded them against all odds, intergalactic or not. Lorien's love inspired Nigel to take his feelings for his fallen friends and became the fighter they'd be proud of. He would carry on the way Bertrand had deserved to, would want him to.

Like the other children, Sam felt the connection in the way his hands shook in her presence or how he stumbled through his words when he tried to describe just how he felt. His love for his family was limitless and his romance with Six was everything he had hoped for.

But Six, like Nigel, was different; there were people she never spoke of and names she even let herself weep for. Six was strong and brutal but she was not over the losses that sparked those changes in her. In the quiet of her own mind, she grieved her Cepan's passing, the death of Henri, of Crayton, of Hector.

She grieved Sarah Hart most of all. She held responsibility for every piece of shrapnel that hit her soft human body, for not being able to protect her in the face of evil and letting her follow her into the pit. Sarah gave herself to the Garde's cause even after only knowing her one love for a short time; she was human, she inherited no powers, but she radiated love like a true Loric and Six regrets every breath torn from her body as she tried to tell Four her last words.

Six will never admit her fears, but she cannot give herself to another person. She loves Sam, but she cannot let herself love him completely. For Seven, Ten, and Four, as others whom she loves, have parts of her heart that she doesn't realize she's given. Four and Six have a bond forged from history while Seven and Six have a bond lasting before they realized how much they meant to each other.

Six loves Sam, but Six cannot give her love to him.

A Loric loves forever, they say, after all. Katarina said she'd had many lovers and the myth had no ounce of truth but Six still feared loving another.

How it should be stated is how a Loric's first love doesn't have to be forever. It's not the act of loving without worry but the act of loving someone else wholly.

When the lips of Number Four brushed those of Number Six, after he'd long to kiss the radiant Sarah Hart one last time, he knew the myth wasn't true, at least not the way he was taught. He loved every piece of Sarah and felt something quietly stir for the mysterious Six but he wasn't completely pulled into either of them. Perhaps it was because Sarah was human or because Six and Four have too much history between their bloodlines, but he failed to be committed to both.

To either.

Even as Six drifted away from Four and let herself fall using that small touch of her heart for Sam, who is as gifted in the ways of love as his father, the blonde Garde could not find a part of him truly wounded. Their kiss was in the moment, a reaction to the proof that another Loric did in fact walk on Earth, but it did not kindle. He didn't know what happened to those feelings, nor did he know the depths of Henri's teachings. He knew that he loved Sarah Hart and believed that she was his only. She would be with him always.

Until she wasn't. Until she died on the front lines protecting the girl he almost left her for.

They were highschool sweethearts; Sarah was a special girl who gave up her life after she was broken by boy and regretted every second of it. She wanted to be the change in herself and she changed many other people in her wake. Radiant, stark, glorious. She was it all for more than just Four. He went to the ends of the earth to save her only to realize she was the one who would save him. The one who should help him want to be better but couldn't.

Four was ruined. He hadn't been knocked down and out of his life like Five or Adam, he wasn't beaten and tortured like Nine, and he wasn't afraid to fall and fail like Six or the human Garde. Like Seven, something inside of him changed only for the worst. Four left the meaningful part of his life behind him with the life of his ex lover.

But, he gave up that part him, the carefree, wild, and determined part, up for someone he hadn't given himself over to completely. Four succumbed to his inner demons over a lover who wasn't his forever and he was angry for it.

Four knew he hadn't loved her the way she deserved and it wounded him deepest of all. His dishonesty haunted him. He loved Sarah, adored her everything and yet he couldn't devote it all to her. He kissed Six recklessly while Sarah was left behind to wait for him; he tried to forget her when he thought she had betrayed them. He grew to care for all of the Garde and their allies as equals, like members of his family…until he hadn't.

Seven kissed him like Six did, brief and emotional but not romantic.

They couldn't.

Because Four gave himself to someone else. Seven knew, when she pulled away from his lips with a soft touch on his arm and knowing smile, that he fell hard for another without intention. His love hadn't left planet, hadn't left him with his feelings while she fell for another. His love wasn't before him, bearing the same scars in different forms, nor lost to the world in a feeble attempt to redeem himself.

Number Nine.

He managed to seal that part of his mind off from Ten's wandering telepathy but Seven didn't need legacies to see it through his eyes, his posture, and his words.

Four held Nine at a distance and threw himself into loving Sarah Hart as much as he could. He saved Nine from his prison in West Virginia and ran with him to Chicago. It was for the good of the Garde that they become allies but in the start, it took Four too long to learn to tolerate Nine. The other Garde started out abusive and vile, threatening violence or using poisoned words as his solutions at every corner to answer half of Four's comments. Nine made it clear how he did not want to like Four, that he wanted Four to obey his every move without much of a retort because that was what he knew: submission. But Four doesn't quit; if he learned anything about himself from his time with Henri, it was how he prided himself on his stubbornness. With every backhanded comment an absentminded Nine gave him, Four would answer with his own challenge and stone face. He gritted his teeth and stood on the peak of their world they lived in together.

Nine started paying attention to him after their first and only physical fight on top of the Windy City. The other boy showed his colors when he lifted Four high above the busyness below but shook with fear. Nine wanted to drive fear into him, break him like the Mogs had tried with him, but it only taught Four so much more. He opened himself up and showed Four all of the colors he was inside with a few short moves and apologetic words. He'd reached up and scratched the back of his head, keeping his eyes on his feet when he mumbled those few sentences; Nine was a Garde who'd witnessed more horror in a year than Four saw his whole life but the prideful Garde quickly crumbled into shyness during his apology. Rubbing the back of his neck, stumbling over his words, he wanted Four to like him and care about him. He shares those hushed parts of himself and trusted Four with his fragility.

Four felt the beginning of those twinges on his heart even then. He remembers the heartbroken look Nine gave him when he sided with taking Six and Sarah with to search for Five. He remembers Nine's failed attempts to get along with Five and Sam both as soon as he'd seen them come back together. He was especially rough towards Sam and whispered cold words about Sarah as he began to distract himself with Eight, Ella and Seven.

They were meant to be knit like a family but to Four, they slowly became divided into two groups, thanks to him and Nine.

All of the more reason they could never be together.

Against all odds, it was Five that kept them together. Five and his words that wore into Nine like no other. He provoked Nine, tested Nine's temper, and forced him to pay the prices for it by breaking his hand and almost ending his life.

Four stood by Nine the entire time, carefully mending his bloody knuckles and ignoring the surprisingly softness of the skin or the urge to interlock the fingers. Even with Sarah part of the broken refuge in Chicago after the Mogadorians took Ella, Four could never snap his conscious, repeated worry of Nine.

Where had he been while Four and Adam led the others onward?

How was he? Was he bloodied, or broken? Could he bring himself back from the brink without Four to tend his wounds and ease his careless thoughts?

No amount of human loves or Garde kisses could ever distract his mind from returning back to Number Nine and Four hated himself for it. Their reunion was as sweet and honest as he could have imagined, as Nine asked him of their fights and cheered for Four's dry answer. But the sound of Nine's rough voice was all Four had needed to hear before he almost forget the rest of the world existed. When Nine led him away to the shelter, an arm tucked carefully around his shoulders, away from the others, it was just to talk in private. An invite for them to have a moment in their private world together again, like before.

Foolish Four couldn't stop staring at the shapes his lips made, longing for Nine to lean forward with knowing and finally dim the tension between them.

Just when he had Nine back in sight, at his side in the midst of war to reclaim Ella, Five pulled him back away again in a duel to the death. Nine fought with the ferocity of every fallen Garde, for it was now obvious to Four that his one love would always be the battlefield. Nine loved wars he didn't rage and enemies he couldn't find anything good in. Fights raged in his veins and thrilled him more than any one person could.

It was his first real heartbreak. Before Sarah Hart weakly breathed her last words over the satellite phone, Four had already been recovering from a broken relationship he never had.

He only hated himself more when her death came. He missed the tender embrace and sweet taste of Sarah's kisses as much as he longed for any part of Nine to care for him back. He lost both.

So in return, Four broke himself. He was not going to let love change him anymore, let it define every piece of his existence. His plan worked instantly, sacrificing more and more of himself every time he was called into action. His body became a field of scars, physical and emotional, and only a few souls dared to cross the plains.

One soldier in particular made it across; he survived long enough throughout their war, throughout their downfall, and throughout the darkness that became of Number Four. He bared his ground and fought himself for words that he feared would fail him.

" _ **You should know that... I'd prefer it if you made it out of this alive with me."**_

 _With me._

Four failed to be at Nine's side when he charged Ra with a ferocity only legends knew, when he lost his right arm entirely. He failed to be that solidarity, just like he had already failed in so many of his other tasks. Sarah Hart, the human Garde, and now the only being that held every part of his love.

Four almost died, slashed almost to ruin under the desperate claws of Setrakus the minute the Anubis crashed into the mountain and sentenced Ra to demise. He remembers lying on his back with his eyes peering up towards the stars, bloodied and weightless as every regret left him behind. He would join Sarah, Eight, and Henri in the collection of whispers beyond.

His one regret, the one that anchored him to life, was being dishonest. He regretted being dishonest to those who passed, dishonest to those surviving Garde, and especially dishonest to himself.

He had blacked out, a mix of ready and mournful of his death.

Four remembers a lock of blonde hair and the metallic taste of blood along someone's soft lips pressed to his. One last bitter farewell, or a warm welcome to his new reality he didn't deserve, from Sarah Hart.

He remembers wishing, for a desperate second of his fading conscious, that it had been a lock of familiar, thin black hair.

And hating himself for it.

Four escaped the hospital he awoke in, a haunted shadow of himself. He didn't say goodbye nor leave on his own terms but not because he didn't want to; he fled entirely because he couldn't name them. He was trapped inside of his own mind games, a victim to every new monster his scatter made.

He ran from everything about himself, hoping the weight of his tired feet could outrun every ounce of those feelings after spending all of his time recovering under Nine's careful sight line. Nine's tired, scratchy voice pulled him, his throaty laugh whenever he had the energy to fake one surrounded him. He ran from his desires.

But, it did nothing.

For it was Nine who had convinced him to live and find a new purpose for himself; it was the sound of Nine's voice and the texture of his scarred hands that reminded him that his life and love ran far deeper than firsts and broken pieces. Nine, with his bruised past and arrogant blood, sharing his weaknesses and asking for Four's trust in return. Nine, lying cold and inspiring at his feet, waiting to be healed so he could continue his fight like he was meant to.

Nine had a power over Four that no one could dream of and he didn't even realize it.

For Four loved Nine the same way Pittacus Lore had loved Setrakus Ra and it scared him; it scared him how much he was willing to risk for a boy who would never look his way the same. Even after a year departed from the new world and every bit of life in it, none of these feelings changed.

And he learned to be ok with that.

When Four was ready to return to the world, he visited Nine first. He wouldn't waste forever gazing at him in the shadows of the academy when Nine was his light, or planning a thousand unsaid words meant just for him. He wouldn't waste time when he fought and won for a bounce in his step.

He had to see him again, share a few innocent words with him before the other Garde's absence could hurt him anymore. He looked on with such fondness as Nine instructed the next generation and helped them find themselves in Lorien's love. He saw the person Nine was starting to become from a distance, saw all of the parts of Nine that may have moved on from him.

The way Nine pulled him into a long, tight hug felt like homecoming, giving the first real touch of true warmth Four felt in years. He fought the urge to bury himself in it and open up to the overpower in the moment, just pulled apart and offered his words.

He was on a mission, to deliver onto the other saviors of the planet his plan to maintain peace. Lorien's love would keep Earth from accepting a similar fate and it was Four who would see to that promise.

As much as he wanted to close the gap between them and finally address the growing tension, Four's mission called for his focus elsewhere. He couldn't watch the syllables that Nine's lips formed or admire the sneaky gleam his dark eyes made when he talked up his work and his own healing. He had to quell every urge to take his hand or tuck back the loose strands of his far too long hair. He had to stay the same Four that left a year ago, the one face that every human associated with heroism, the one who was still prying the grief from his core. If at least, for now.

For now, he kept echoing in the back of his mind. Those two words were what hope was made from and Four's entire life was built on quiet wishes.

Number Four was ready to admit that he was and always would be in love with Number Nine but that he couldn't act on it.

The rational side of his mind, the part that kept telling him another romance could ruin him and the Garde's progress on Earth, reminded him he spent too much time in this moment. It mentally kicked him for every extra second he reconsidered staying here with Nine instead. Four managed to make his excuses, overcome with every new sensation he felt, and left to meet with the other Garde. He had a mission to attend to, no matter how aware he was of the way his his skin quickly turned cold again.

How just leaving tasted like a mix of bitter and sour that he felt in his bones, and made him shudder as he flew from place to place. His very being felt revived with that fleeting visit with Nine, like Four had finally found the real understanding of peace in him.

He may have accepted his feelings but he didn't realize how badly he hadn't wanted their talk to end. How much he couldn't bare spending even more time away from Nine.

Four went back, with every ounce of courage it took to defeat Setrakus Ra and win an intergalactic war, to that lone academy with one last mission. Finally, he would do something for himself.

He detested the look of surprise on Nine's face when he approached him for the second time in almost a year. He didn't want to be reminded of how much of a coward he once was.

 _I came back for you._ He'd let the words he was comfortable with saying tumble from his mouth, let the tone in his voice say everything else.

Beat. It was the longest moment of Four's life, clenching his fists and willing himself not to run.

 _I hoped you would._

If this was what happiness truly felt like, then this day was the first that Four felt alive. Every part of him crumbled into soft relief. When they embraced for the second time, Four opened up and wasn't cutting closing again.

He buried himself in Nine, resting his head into his shoulder and holding on like the rest of the world didn't exist around them. Nine's arm held him close, his hand brushed the side of his face as it touched every little scar that Four knew was there. His body and mind were full of marks but they were reminders, not shames. Nine knew that.

Four didn't know who moved first. He shifted at the same time as Nine's hold on his form loosened. All he knew was that he had the feeling of Nine's fingertips nestled into his hair, lips against his own, and a raging fire like he'd never controlled kindling somewhere deep in him.

He kissed Nine with heat and fight while the other boy was hesitant and passionate; they were complimentary of one another, at opposite ends of themselves as long as it meant it was Nine and Four ended up together like this.

They pushed, fighting for this long awaited moment to last forever. Nine was the one who broke the kiss, strengthening his hold over Four's shoulders and kissing his forehead. Nine grounded them back and reminded Four that this was, in fact, real.

It took Four long enough to look up and meet Nine's eyes. It took enough for him to smile in return, curling his fingers around Nine's sides and rest his forehead against the other boy's chin while Nine's hand lowered softly to his waist.

It had been ages since he last truly smiled, feeling the pure joy as it soared through every part of his body. He was revived, like Earth had been with the sacrifices and frustrated tears of many.

Love like Lorien's was strong enough to end wars, to bind together alike people in joy and purity. The age old myth states that a Loric cannot love another person once they fall for the first time, but it isn't until a Loric gives themselves wholly to another that those words are true. Even the greats are bound by these quiet rules and haunted by the consequences.

Whereas the strength of Loric love framed the ill doomed fates of Pittacus Lore and Setrakus Ra many years before, it become the sign of hope for the rest of the world in Number Nine and in Number Four.


End file.
